This invention was disclosed in Information Disclosure Document No. 326,496, filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Mar. 12, 1993 and is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/138,426 filed Oct. 20, 1993 now abandoned.
1. Field of the Invention
The present trend in medicine is preventive treatment. If one can prevent an injury before it occurs, the difficult and painful recuperation from that injury will never be necessary. The present invention seeks to prevent injury, or re-injury, by providing the user with a warning when a posture likely to cause problems occurs. The invention relates to devices that react to the movement of the wearer. More specifically, it relates to a device that is mounted on a belt and generates a progression of audible tones that correspond with the flexion, extension, and rotation of the user's torso. Even more specifically, it relates to a device where a preset range of movement can be set or programed into such a device, and if this range or limit is exceeded, the apparatus will set off a warning tone that will vary according to the type of movement, either extension, flexion, or rotation, that activated the alarm.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Back injuries are a common occurrence. In many cases, surgery is required to alleviate the distressing symptoms that can make the injured person's life a misery. Additionally, poor posture can exacerbate not only a preexisting condition, but can lead to other health problems in and of itself. There have been a number of patents issued for devices worn by the user that address this issue by generating warning tones when poor posture is sensed by the device.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,914,423 issued on Apr. 13, 1990 to Luis C. Fernandez discloses a posture improving device. This apparatus senses the expansion of the user's waist and sounds an alarm when this occurs. Contrast this to present applicant's invention which has a pair of vertically oriented arms for sensing the degree of flexion, extension, and rotation of the user's back.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,871,998 issued on Oct. 3, 1989 to Michel B. Chaillu there is disclosed a posture belt wherein an alarm is sounded according to the distension of the belt. Again, as above, this device does not show the extended sensing arms disclosed in applicant's present application, nor does it teach a means for pre-setting the device to customize the amount of flexion or extension permitted before the alarm sounds.
Next is U.S. Pat. No. 4,730,625 issued on Mar. 15, 1988 to Gregory A. Fraser et al. wherein a posture monitoring system is described. In this device, pockets are sewn into a T-shirt, or other similar snug upper body garment, and elongated strips comprised of semiconductor strain gauges are inserted therein. The strain gauges produce an electrical signal that is monitored by an electronic circuit and, if a predetermined limit is passed, an alarm sounds. In contrast to applicant's invention, there are no extended arms, nor can the device be set to specific directions and/or degrees of allowable movement.
Another patent of interest is U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,145 issued on Sep. 18, 1990 to James A. Morris. In this device, there is disclosed a back incline indicator wherein a gravity operated mercury switch and a beeper is used to indicate when a certain preset angle from the vertical has been reached or exceeded. As in the other patents described above, there are no vertical extension arms for movement sensing, nor are indicators of torso rotation allowed for or taught in this publication.
None of these patents, or any other inventions known, taken singly or in combination, show the concept of the present invention which is the monitoring of excessive spinal cord deflections, either in compression, tension, torsion or bending, and the generation of appropriate warning signals upon the detection of a present excessive deflection.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed.